The Best of The Willow Press

If my father Gary Hantke, proprietor of the Willow Press, were alive he’d be 91 today. He would have had 21 more years to print, a gift he would have enjoyed. As it was, he printed actively for about 40 years, from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s.

Dad loved his print shop! He spent much of his free time on weekends there. Often he couldn’t sleep in the morning, so he went downstairs to print. As a result he was a prolific printer – though much of his printing consisted of smaller pieces he could complete in the early morning hours. But projects large and small show the same careful craftsmanship.

Following is a selection of printed pieces by The Willow Press. As I look at Dad’s printing today, I appreciate the design, the impression, the use of white space. Here are some of the best of the best.

Type ‘N’ Stuff was a journal my father put out in the 1950s. I like the colors he used on this cover, and the Parsons type in the title.


My father frequently contributed pages to cooperative booklets such as Treasure Gems and It’s a Small World. This piece for It’s a Small World showcased some of his collection of initial letters.



Dad’s favorite type designer was Frederic Goudy. This quote was one he liked, and he hung it on his print shop wall.


Below are two holiday booklets produced by the Willow Press (see also “Hantke Family Christmas Cards”, December 2010).



There’s a personal story behind “A Council of Free Nations”. Before printing it my father wrote to Herbert Hoover to request permission to quote the speech. In the letter Dad told an anecdote about his mother ― she'd told him cocoa that helped to keep relatives in Germany alive between the World Wars came from Herbert Hoover. Hoover replied personally to Dad’s letter and gave permission to reprint the speech. He added that the cocoa came from the American people and he was only the instrument.


Dad’s largest printing effort was a book, “Lincoln the Railsplitter”, published in 1961. It was entirely handset, one letter and space at a time, a true labor of love. Though reasonably priced at $4.00, the 500 copies of the book sold sluggishly. Perhaps as a result, Dad decided to devote his time to less time-consuming printing projects. He still entertained the idea of a miniature book with fellow printer Ward Schori, who had produced several, but it never happened.



Of the many pieces my father printed, The Fool’s Prayer is one of my favorites. I appreciate the cover with its pattern of clowns, and the imaginative usage of Worrell Uncial inside. Simple and beautifully printed, it’s a piece that speaks for itself.



So Happy Birthday, Dad! I still miss you. How I wish you could have had those extra years! But my husband and I are so grateful for the love of printing you handed down to us.

Something New -- New Year's Cards!

After a couple of decades of creating Christmas cards, my husband and I were struggling to come up with something new and different each year. Then an entirely different avenue beckoned — New Year’s cards! Inspired by our late printing mentor Emerson Wulling, who made New Year’s cards a holiday tradition, we decided to give them a try.

Below, Emerson Wulling's New Year's card for 1951, featuring a Robert Louis Stevenson quote.




After finding a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox that fit the idea of new beginnings, the rest of our 2007 New Year’s greeting came easily. We set the poem in Parsons type and our New Year’s greetings in Tiffany Gothic, then added a large and smaller cut of a clipper ship to fit the nautical theme.





For 2008 we got a little more fancy. We’d been studying and identifying some of our old wood type, so we decided to feature it on the card. Each 2008 was printed with a different wood type, the exception being the smaller black 2008 with the dots in the middle of the zeros — that’s a Central metal typeface called Atlanta. Inside we set the Rilke quote in Bewick Roman (a great 19th century typeface recast by Skyline Type Foundry) and added our good wishes for the year in Washington, another old Central Type Foundry face.





We used one of our latest “finds” on our 2009 New Year’s card: an unusual old border, Floriated Border, rescued from a moldering case we discovered in an antique store in Paducah, Kentucky. The tiny pieces of twig, flower, and bark border were hard to set, but created an interesting result. And we really liked the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, which we set in Grolier, a gorgeous old MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan Type Foundry face. The inside of the card also included Extra Ornamented #2 and Geometric Italic.





After we bought a book last year with examples of artistic 19th century printing, we decided to experiment a little with color on our 2010 New Year’s card. We tried several different color combinations (including seasonal red and green) before settling on yellow, green, and dark brown ink on cream paper. The yellow impression was laid down first, followed by the green and then the brown. “2010” is printed in Arboret, a 19th century MacKellar face. Inside we used Caslon Open and Caslon Italic in brown and green tones to set the poem by Whittier.





We’ve printed five New Year’s cards now, and we’re still full of ideas. And we’ve found that New Year’s cards offer the letterpress printer some advantages: 1) the chance to use inspirational, optimistic quotes/poetry about the future; 2) the opportunity to feature fancy old numerals; and, happily 3) a bit more time to get the holiday cards printed and mailed out!

So... we wish you a very Happy New Year! Thank you for reading this blog, and I look forward to sharing more with you in 2011!

How I Design A Printed Piece

First, a disclaimer – many printers are more skilled at design than I am! Everyone has their own style, too -- often I can pick out pieces by a certain printer. Some printers love borders, others cuts. Some work with color or pattern, others with type alone. Some fill their pieces to the brim, while others print sparely. And each printer prints differently depending on the material and the occasion.

That said, it’s interesting to look at how a printed piece comes together, as least for me. Initially, there’s the idea. What do I want to print? Sounds simple, but it can be hard. I can spend a lot of time trying to find just the right quote, poem, or article.

Once I have an idea, I think about the size and shape of paper that would work best for that project. Sometimes that’s already decided if the piece is part of a cooperative booklet or calendar. Otherwise, the project determines the size and configuration. Flat or folded? Single or multiple pages? Large or small? Horizontal or vertical? At this point everything’s an option.

Next, I look for type and decorative material to express the feeling of the piece. I use our Poco press to proof cuts, border, initials, and lines of type. Everything needs to harmonize, to work together. Ideally the typefaces are from close to the same era, and of a similar weight. Likewise, cuts, border, or initials need to blend in.

I proof the type and cuts, cut up the proofs, and arrange and rearrange elements on paper the size of my piece. No, not right. Try this size of type or this cut instead. More space between this line and that. Maybe the initial needs to be higher. It’s an instinctive, eyeball-it process. I know I’ve got it right when the whole thing looks good to me in plain black.

Once the piece comes together, more decisions need to be made. I choose my paper. And if I’m using color, I decide which colors where. Sometimes that’s simple. Other times I try several different color schemes, rolling out various inks on pieces of glass, making proofs, and cutting them up.

I’m fortunate that throughout this entire process I have access to the advice of another printer -- my husband Bob. Usually one of us takes the lead, then asks the other’s opinion, though sometimes we design a piece together.

It’s hard to come up with guidelines for designing a printed piece because every piece is different. There are basics I tend to follow though. Sometimes I break my own rules, but I follow them most of the time:

1) I try to keep the piece simple, rather than over-ornamenting things.
2) I generally match time period, weight, and style of the type and ornaments – the exception being an eclectic Victorian-style piece with different type on every line.
3) I make sure it looks good in black before adding color.
4) I keep tweaking until I get the look I want.

For me, designing a printed piece is a process of self-expression. Take the exact same idea and no two printers will print it the same way. And to me that’s part of the joy of it!

An example of choosing the quote to suit the typeface: Rustica resembles the handwriting of early scribes close to the time when Marcus Aurelius was emperor.


This memorial for my mother is printed in Murray Hill, her favorite typeface, with a border of flowers and musical notes, two of her favorite things.


A New Year's card using layers of color. My husband and I proofed several different color combinations to find the one we liked best.


One color can be just right for the occasion. This Xmas card uses a variety of old typefaces and borders in the "Victorian clutter" format.



Keeping it simple works, too. Here an interesting typeface (Parsons) takes center stage.

My Favorite Typeface(s)

Naming a favorite typeface is like saying which of your children you like the best. I like too many typefaces to choose one favorite. In fact I like too many typefaces for my own good, but that’s beside the point. Picking one favorite is limiting. From the type we have, I can pick one favorite body type, one italic, one display type, one text, one uncial, one antique type − maybe.

After all, different typefaces are good for printing different things. If you’re doing an art deco piece, you need art deco type. If you’re quoting Dickens, something like Caslon would be appropriate. Doing a Christmas card or something religious ─ use text. Something medieval − maybe an uncial. Something Victorian − a medley of wildly eccentric typefaces from the 19th century. Typefaces have all kinds of flavors, and like gourmet jelly beans, different combinations create an entirely new experience.

But back to favorites: for body type (type used for the bulk of material in a piece) I would pick Italian Old Style. I enjoy setting and reading it, probably because of its openness and clarity. And we have a nice assortment of sizes in roman, italic, and small caps. But I like Caslon, Garamond, Devinne, and LaClede Old Style, too. How can I choose just one!

A quote in Italian Oldstyle, with Hadriano Stonecut for the title.


My favorite italic type would be a tie between Caslon Italic 471 (with long descenders) and Grolier, a beautiful old MacKellar face with kerned characters. Are two favorites okay?

A Christmas card using Caslon Italic 471 for a quote from Dickens.


A Valentine showing the flourishes of Grolier, an elegant kerned font from MacKellar, Smiths, and Jordan.


For display type, a favorite is Legend, with its Arabian Nights look. Then there’s Parsons, with its wonderful ascenders and descenders, full of design possibilities. So many great display types are out there − Hadriano Stonecut, Schoeffer Condensed, Parisian − each perfect for a certain kind of printed piece.

Legend type, used for the title page of "A Tale of Arabia".

Parsons by Will Ransom has many optional ascenders and descenders, but the trick is figuring out where to use them.


Text type is easier to decide on. Washington Text has the less conventional text look I prefer. For text-like appearance that’s not quite text, I like the pen-lettering look of Freehand.

Washington Text, a text type from the Keystone Type Foundry.


A Christmas card using Freehand, a versatile pen-lettering typeface.


With uncials, that ancient medieval letterform, my favorite is Worrell Uncial. Though we only have it in 12 point, we use it often.

A prop card using Worrell Uncial to print "A Private Press Dedicated to Printing for Pleasure, Self-Expression, and the Preservation of Letterpress Printing History".


Choose one favorite antique type − impossible! They’re as individual and eccentric as a ninety year old maiden aunt. But if I had to choose, candidates for me would include Scribner, Art Gothic, and Atlanta.

Scribner, an eccentric typeface from the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis, is fun to play with.


Some types I lust for include Goudy Mediaeval, Civilite, and anything unusual or antique. Type lust, I must confess, is a disease. You know you’ve got it when you find yourself drooling over fonts and specimen books.

Is there any type I don’t like? Yes. Brush. It’s thick, clunky, and often badly used. Brush sets my teeth on edge. Thankfully we no longer own any.

So ... what’s your favorite typeface?